Man Hunt Leads to an Arrest in Chipley

Viewed: 3568

Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Feb 12 2013 9:19 AM

On February 08 at approximately 11:48am officers with the Chipley Police Department were dispatched to a residence on South 8th Street. The call was relayed to the officers that a white male had knocked on the door to a home on 8th street that was occupied by an elderly lady. When the lady opened the door the male subject pushed his way into the home.

The man then asked the home owner to use her phone. The lady told the man to get out of her house which he did. The home owner said the man ran through her yard in a westerly direction towards S.R. 77. The home owner was able to provide police with a good description of the suspect. During this time we were joined in the search by the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. One of the neighbors of 8th Street advised us of where the subject “had been hanging out.” We went to this residence which was on Court Avenue. The Court Avenue resident identified the man that we were looking for as Dallas Payne of Caryville. The resident told us that Payne was high on meth.

At approximately 12:24 pm a man matching the description was seen leaving the North West Florida Community Hospital. Payne spent a few minutes in the hospital and took a white lab coat from the hospital before leaving. At approximately 12:30 Payne was seen cutting the property of the Washington County Christian School. Payne left the Christian School in a southerly direction placing him on the back side of the Washington Square property. Payne then entered through the rear door of Javier’s Restaurant and left the same way. Payne was last seen going into the woods behind Tyndall Federal Credit Union. At his time we joined in the search by the North West Florida Reception Center K-9 Unit. The K-9 team entered the woods behind Tyndall where they found Payne laying down at approximately 200 yards. Payne was caught at approximately 1:35pm. After we caught Payne we were able to locate the hospitals lab coat and his pants that he had taken off.

These items along with methamphetamine were located in close proximity to Payne. After talking with all people involved no one said that Payne ever threatened anyone. The Washington County Christian School, and Chipley’s Middle and High School did go on lock down status until we caught him. We wanted to thank the public because they kept the calls coming into us until we got him. We want to thank the Sheriff’s Dept. at the K-9 Team from Greenhead, also. They all provided several people to us and were a great assistance to catching this guy.